Long weary leagues across the treacherous plain,
Long weary leagues across the treacherous sea,
Comrades with danger, clasping hands with pain,
Pathmakers, builders of the State to be.

Boys with their school texts still upon their lips,
And stalwart men in sinewy, bearded prime,
And feeble age-on, on where sunshine drips
Its golden splendors in a golden clime.

Gold! Gold! The glittering lure that beckoned them!
Not gold, as now, of fruit on hills and plains,
Fair, fragrant, luscious, upon bough and stem-
But Gold! The metal-blood of the earth's grim veins.

Some, overmastered, laid them down and slept
The sleep unwakening in a prairie-grave;
And some restless tryst forever kept
With Death, beneath the unrecording wave.

And some like Israel of old, the Land
Of Promise reached, beheld and found it fair

Beyond the promise, and with greedy hand
Gathered great riches with its greater care-

And died, and passed forgotten to the grave;
And some, with nobler souls to think and feel
Gave back its treasures to the land which gave,
Building the pillars of the Commonweal.

But one there came, indeed, for Gold alone!
A gold which knew not tarnish nor alloy;
With luster bright as God's own starry zone,
Unspoiled of time-that death might not destroy.

A gold he came to seek not, but to give;
The Gold of Knowledge. From the shattered spoils
Of all earth's cares, ah, what alone may live
Of man's achievements? Man's unending toils?

Knowledge and Truth alone. All else is dust.
Treasure to ransom worlds but ruthless dross,
Swept by winds, fretted of mould and rust;
Thrones, empires, races-death, oblivion, loss.

And Knowledge is but Truth! A lighted way
Leading to heights supreme from lowest sod;
From morning twilight to immortal day-
From God's creation to Creation's God....

Long did he labor; knew the plenteous lack
Of that, the baser metal of man's aim-
But wearied not, nor faltered, nor turned back,
And lo! at last fruition's glory came.

He saw the humble School-Walls widen, grow,
And stand, proud halls upon the Berkley hills;
The tree-crowned slopes, the fields in emerald glow,
The throng that studious quietude that fills;

The Golden Gate by wave and sun caressed,
In outward look across the Bay's blue floor,
And from those walls into the mighty west
Fair Science beckon from her open door.

His Gold had blossomed! Ah, what more for him
Could earth in folded days hold still concealed?
Happy, he passed beyond our Planet's rim,
To where, in God, all Knowledge is revealed.